My Picture!

I love photographs and digital photography has brought us such a long way. Photos in an instant, the ability to upload them wherever and whenever we like immediately and absolutely no wastage whatsoever. All of everything about modern day photography is an amazing leap but… There is a little bit of a but for me I’m afraid. Nothing that would have me back in a dark room wasting film on bad photography but a little ‘but’ all the same!

I do actually miss the smell of a dark room having taken a photography course in college (I loved taking portraits with custom backdrops) and though I wouldn’t, for certain, be developing my own these days there is something rather spectacular about not knowing what’s going to come out. Watching them develop or picking a pack up from the chemist after a holiday are both things which gave an element of surprise that we just don’t get in photography these days and I do wonder if we have lost the art of a rubbish photograph – if you can call it an art, I think so. Looking back at some of my teenage pictures is brilliant fun and I can’t help but note that the majority of those shots wouldn’t exist had I had the ability to delete on the spot! I think perhaps we’ve lost something a little about the character in that sense and though I wouldn’t go back and change it, there is a bit of regret there!

The other thing I think might be a tiny bit of a shame is tinged on both ends – we simply don’t print out pictures anymore and while on the one hand we don’t have boxes upon boxes of physical photographs to pour through (just me?) and that’s a good thing, we also don’t tend to USE them in our real lives. We post them to social media and I’m all for it, don’t get me wrong, I use my Facebook as a storage point and it’s far better than a big box or filing cabinet full, and of course I have my blog too but… I rarely print my favourites out to put on the wall or just to have to hand either. And sometimes it really is nice you know. An album to pour over or a photograph always sat on the side to remind you of a moment.

And we DO have ways of still keeping albums it’s just getting around to it I suppose. These days a photobook is so much easier than an album of old and so I’ve made it a decision that important things in my life will be printed in such a way from now on. Holidays, birthdays, school holidays. All recorded in physical format so that I have something to look at when I want to!

For Christmas I have actually made some little books from our big family holiday in the summer for example. I used My-Picture.co.uk where photobooks are ridiculously good value and though we all have the pictures on our social platforms I do think everyone will enjoy having the books. My children love looking at ours and pouring over the memories and this is what I mean about moving on and away – we need to move on for sure but NOT away. Photographs should be enjoyed and not always on a computer!

The My-Picture.co.uk photo books are really easy to use and if you like, the app will just arrange all the pictures for you so that you don’t have to. I ordered three books and on each occasion asked the application to organise the pictures for me then I went in and just played around with them a little bit changing things here and there. So much easier than doing each one individually, although of course you can do that too. You can choose the size and different layouts on each page and obviously there are lots of different books of varying sizes to choose from too with different finishes. I’m very impressed and for my three books the price was a SUPER low £24!

While I was doing the books I made a couple of photo calendars too. One for myself and one for my Mum as I do every year. They are the BEST presents because they are useful, don’t take up any room and of course contain your precious memories. As with the photo books you can choose different layouts and have more than one picture on each page if you wish. I adore a calendar with the babes on the months and always choose a picture or two from the corresponding month from the year before. My Mum would be upset if she didn’t get one too!

Again the process is simple and the website helps you so that you don’t actually have to do too much work yourself! LOVE!

OBVIOUSLY while I was there I had a look at the rest of the site too and couldn’t help myself with ordering a few bits for the wall.

MIXPIX® are photo tiles which can be stuck on the all and removed to replace somewhere else as many times as you like. There is an offer on them at the moment making them just £5 each instead of £16 and though I was all for ordering some as presents I just couldn’t do it and ordered three for myself instead. Couldn’t help it, really I couldn’t! Like I said, I rarely print pictures out for the wall (in fact we have none of Raffie up yet AT ALL – though lots of pictures taken and plans to frame I promise) and this just seemed so easy. I have three really lovely whole family pictures of the five of us that I love and have been meaning to print out and frame. Well… It’s just done now isn’t it and I haven’t had to print, buy frames OR get around to putting them on the wall with a hook (I also have lots of pictures framed would you believe but not actually put up yet – I’m so lazy!) so this is just perfect really! As easy as taking the pictures digitally in the first place, a quick peruse of the My-Picture website, a bit of uploading and arranging and hey presto. They’re on the wall!

The delivery is very efficient and everything came within a fortnight so for that I am mega impressed – I’ve had pictures in frames ready and waiting for a wall fixing for years and pictures on memory sticks ready to take and be printed out even longer. These just arrived at my door and they’re on the wall! I’m so happy with them. I AM going to order a load more. LOAD!

So… There you have it, why I love photography for all its forward thinking behaviour but why also I miss the good old days and how to recreate them a little bit using My-Picture – of course it’s only recreating the end result of having a physical photo to hand or on the wall, none of the faff of actually printing, framing, putting in albums etc. I mean, it couldn’t be any easier!

This post is a collaboration with My-Picture but as always my thoughts and reviews are genuine and not as a reflection on my brand partnership.